


Wish That You Were Here

by bobee



Series: fly away birdie (come back home) [1]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Emotional Hurt, Gen, He Just Wants His Family, Hurt, Hurt No Comfort, Hurt Number Five | The Boy, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, Kidnapped Five Hargreeves, Kidnapped Number Five, Number Five | The Boy Needs A Hug, Number Five | The Boy Whump, Number Five | The Boy has PTSD, Number Five | The Boy-centric, Touch-Starved Number Five | The Boy, abused five hargreeves, enjoy people, five is HURT hurt, five is a wreck in this, five is sort of baby in this bc i’m weak for it, five sort of falls into touch with his younger mindset, fucking chaos, if that makes sense, it probably doesnt, pls be careful when reading, pls someone give him his siblings, these tags have no order like my life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-17
Updated: 2020-10-17
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:08:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27036214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bobee/pseuds/bobee
Summary: He hadn't known that things would turn out this way. If he had, he would've stayed. Would've left the world to rot in it's cages.Or, well, as one might say, some things just can't be avoided.Especially the things he can't control.(or, Number Five, the end of the apocalypse, and the beginning of hell.)
Relationships: Number Five | The Boy & The Hargreeves (Umbrella Academy)
Series: fly away birdie (come back home) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1973194
Comments: 57
Kudos: 290





	Wish That You Were Here

**Author's Note:**

> WARNING: this piece contains emotional, physical and sexual abuse of a minor. (I don't care if he's fifty-eight in conscience, his body is thirteen.) I did my best effort in approaching everything sensitively and carefully, this wasn't written lightly. All the graphic scenes are perceived from Five's point of view, the victim, and although it's meant to be uncomfortable I hope it isn't harmful to anyone. Please read with caution, be mindful of tags and take care, lovelies.  
> (Part II will deal with the aftermath of the final events.)

**P A R T I**

**where it all fell down**

* * *

  
  


It’s dark outside when it happens.

Things are reverting back to their normal. Really, they never even _had_ normal, but they are finding it in this new time with new people and new souls and new stories to be told. New versions of themselves, who of which they are discovering more and more each day under a new sun which shines just as bright.

They are not in Dallas anymore, nor are they in the sixties, but they are with each other and they have found home. 

And things are good for a while. They are confusing and a little messy and it’s complicated finding footing in a world they’d grown out of, but time does it’s thing and they find their places as if they’d never been lost at all.

Allison sticks around for a while, after a few phone calls and promises she’s not sure she can keep, she stays with her family and they reminisce in watching old movies and drinking on Friday nights and eating doughnuts until they throw up just like they used to. 

They don’t relax at first. After two apocalypses and a broken timeline and fighting fights that didn’t need to be fought, they keep their eyes open and watch for what they aren’t sure is there. They eat sugar-laced pancakes and peanut-butter sandwiches and ice-cream bowls with cookie crumbs sprinkled on top just because they can. 

And they are their own people, but when they are together it’s almost as if they mould into one, for they have been through so much. They saved the world—twice. They deserve a break and it’s what they get.

Klaus, after gentle coaxing and a lifetime of convincing, starts to attend a therapy group where he isn’t limited by his own ability and he can speak as freely as he pleases. It doesn’t change him, not who he is nor do they want it to, but he seems happier at least and that in itself is ten steps forward. 

Diego is, well, Diego. Job hunting and cosy-at-home, he is in a happier headspace. Luther too, and they lessen with the inferior complex and simply let themselves just be.

Vanya continues her violin lessons because that’s where she feels most at peace within herself and others, and with all of their own spoonful's of normality the world doesn’t seem so scary anymore. 

Five moves in with Vanya and is never really to be seen. She greets him in the morning and welcomes him home at night, but other than that Five is always somewhere or someplace, doing Lord knows what and downing cup after cup of coffee.

And, well, some things never do change.

Others do.

— 

Normal becomes unfamiliar.

Five can’t remember what it is anymore because it switches up on him all the time. He’s learnt not to adjust, to settle, to become. He escapes the hands that pull him home and the smiles that worm their way into the warmth of his soul. Little, but there. 

And he was right not to trust too quickly. 

On the fifteenth day of coming home, the world flips again, in a way he isn’t used to, nor knows how to fix. This is something way off his street, and he thought he knew everything. But this—this he doesn’t know the first thing about.

It’s dark and he doesn’t remember much. He remembers walking with his hands in his pockets and the wind sort of at his face in a way that he doesn’t like, and the way the clouds had been thick and covering the stars and any source of natural skylight. He remembers kicking a pebble down the sidewalk and thinking too hard about thoughts he didn’t need to think.

He remembers scrunching up a paper coffee cup in his fist, ready to throw into an upcoming bin a few light footsteps away. What he doesn’t remember is his instincts being turned off, and his reflexes two beats too slow. His mind had been elsewhere, wrapped and warped into something not worth the while, uncharacteristic of him.

He doesn’t remember something coming up behind him, appearing out of thin air in a way that would challenge one's sense of reality, clipping him behind the ear and pulling him somewhere down, down, down.

He doesn’t remember the fall, but he remembers the dark and the whispers and the needle in his neck and the world folding under his feet.

He doesn’t remember most things after that.

— 

He wakes up in a basement. And despite the initial string of fear that jolts slightly through slips of skin and bone, he finds the amusement at how typical it is. Of course, a very small, empty black basement. What else is new in the grand scheme of things?

He doesn’t let himself swallow the buckets of nerves rattling inside where he doesn’t want to look. He looks around instead, eyes drawn to the random things scattered around the damp, abandoned underground: _a chair, a sink, a slip of paper and a toilet._

He doesn’t think about why he is here. He’s not entirely sure if he wants to know. Instead, he questions the dripping coming from the left corner of the ceiling, his shoeless feet and his hands that are tied together with a strip of something he can’t name, but it’s strong. It holds him down, and Five isn’t used to things holding him back.

He thinks about the moment where the wind had been knocked out of him with such incredible force, his sternum bloodied and bruised and the darks layered across his flank. He thinks about the rubble from the apocalypse and the cold hands and the fish eyes and the newspaper calling him home. He thinks about his siblings and what they are doing right now and if they are safe. If he is safe. What timeline is he in? Is he gone again?

His head hurts but his heart hurts more, and he sits there bitterly waiting for something and he is Five Hargreeves, and he doesn’t wait. But he is tied up and it’s done so cleverly even he can’t trick himself out of it. Whoever has done this is smart and he wonders for an ugly moment if it’s The Commission again looking for their favourite little assassin.

That hurts his head even more, so he stops thinking altogether.

“Hello?” He calls. He knows it’s useless, but it’s what he did before when he was left alone. It’s what he’s used to doing. He doesn’t get an answer, expectedly, and he slumps further into where his arms are tight around a wooden beam. It rubs sores into his wrists.

He’s exhausted. He’s not usually this exhausted. No—he is. He’s learnt to deal with it but for some reason in this case he doesn’t know where to begin.

(He never knows where to begin.)

He taps his foot across the concrete ground. He thinks that if it were anybody else they’d be screaming by now, but although he is lost, he isn’t stupid. He will get out of this and be home by tonight, and he will have hot chocolate and snark at his siblings and pretend that he hates their affection because that’s what he does. It’s what he always does.

And they will poke at him and baby him just because he looks like it and they’ll get on his nerves, they always do, but they will laugh and fight and do what siblings do and it will be the way that the way is, and he will forget that this ever happened. 

He fiddles with his tied wrists. He clinks his knees together and wishes desperately for a moment that he was bigger. If it weren’t for this pathetic thirteen-year-old body, people wouldn’t even look twice at him—the people being people, not The Commission, not them, they aren’t back to get him again. They can’t be— 

“You’re awake.”

Five curses internally at his own ineptness and turns his head to where there’s a figure in the doorway. They are dark and hidden in silhouette with the outline and sound of a man. He squints harder. It’s silent for a moment, and he debates on breaking the ice the way he knows he can but he doesn’t want to get stuck beneath the surface and reappear an acorn the way he did before.

“I’m awake,” Five replies dryly. The figure flicks on a torch, and steps further into the room. As they move closer Five can see a faint trace of a sharp nose and chin, broad shoulders and polished dress shoes. “Care to explain why I’m here, and why you have me tied up like an incompentent rabid beast?” 

The figure laughs, and at last pulls a string that flickers beams of light into the basement, lighting up the small space in a soft orange glow. The figure is a man, and he is tall and young and looks like someone who would buy pony books for his daughter’s birthday.

“I’m not in the mood for an explanation just yet,” the man says, folding his arms. His voice is as deep as his laugh, and it’s shallow and throaty and low as it is dark. “I want to have my fun.”

“I’m hoping you’re going to bring out something for you to play with then.” Five narrows his eyes. “I’m not much entertainment when I’m unable to move.”

The laugh again. It’s whiskey this time, scratchy and hot. “My, you’re sharp.”

“And you are an embarrassment to mankind,” Five snaps, wringing his wrists against the beam. “Let me out of here you imbecile. I don’t have time for this nonsense.”

“How old are you?” The man peers at him, bending down to get a closer look and completely ignoring him. “You can’t be older than thirteen. You have such a baby face.”

Five grits his teeth. “Stop looking at me.”

“I can look wherever I want.”

“I don’t give a shit.”

“Good for you,” the man shines the torch directly into Five’s face, fascination drawing across his features. “Gosh, you really are young, aren’t you?”

“Technically,” Five has the urge to hit something. This guy, probably. “I’m older than you. So stop looking at me like you’re going to _eat_ me, you fucking freak.”

This seems to enlighten the man further, intriguing him. He kneels down fully in front of Five and spends a good minute or so just staring at his face. “Tell me why I’m finding that hard to believe.”

“I don’t have time—” _energy_ “—to explain.”

“Oh, but,” the man leans in even closer, breaths ripping off of Five’s own. “Don’t you see? We have all the time in the world.”

— 

Five doesn’t go home that day. He doesn’t drink hot chocolate and snark at his siblings and laugh and fight and watch their happiness grow. 

He doesn’t go home the day after that.

Or the day after that, either.

— 

The man's name is Robert. He doesn’t tell Five his surname. 

Five isn’t sure if ‘Robert’ really is his name at all. He doubts it.

He figures out on the third day that he’s been here a lot longer than he’d anticipated. Much longer in fact. Weeks on end. Weeks where he had been _asleep_. Reduced to a medically induced coma, where his energy had been stripped of him and it's hazy and befuddling in his brain no matter how much he tries to make sense of it. He listens to Robert talk all day and he quips the little pieces of what is said that’s any key to what is going on here, and tries to piece together a story he’s so unsure of and sure of at the same time it feels like his mind is oozing down his ears the way blood does and trickles right through his fingertips.

From Robert’s incoherent rambles and non-stop chit-chat that sounds like English backwards, Five is able to come up with an unfinished picture that shows little bits of what might be enough. He thinks (well, he’s almost sure) that Robert had taken him all those weeks ago, hooked him up on a drip and ran test after test (he has files, after all, with medical records and results from experiments Five doesn’t remember) and that’s exactly why he’s here.

But it’s the games, it’s the damn _games_ Five can’t deal with.

“Tell me your favourite colour,” Robert says. 

_My favourite colour_ , Five thinks, bitterly. _Who has time to think of favourite fucking colours?_

“Black,” he says, simply. His eyes are focused on the doorknob behind Robert’s shoulder, the slithers of light snipping in beneath the doorway. 

Robot chuckles and it’s a dangerous sound. “That’s hardly a good colour to be favourited.”

“Well it’s mine,” Five snaps, glaring at him. His fingers tremble slightly from the lack of food and water, right from where he has his cheek mushed against their restrained hold around the beam. “Take it or leave it.”

“You would look so pretty in all sorts of colours,” Robert hums, and Five’s stomach twists in this really awful way that has his eyes hardening in defense. “I ought to dress you up, one of these days.”

“I’m not a fucking doll,” Five growls, but it isn’t really any use. He can’t jump, can’t move, and the only time of day he gets to _breathe_ properly is when he’s given a literal two-minute break to relieve himself. Barely.

His days are so repetitive and blank, and he finds himself wondering if he'd be better off alone in the damn apocalypse. He often says it, or, well, used to, out of sheer frustration with his sometimes seemingly braindead siblings when things would go really tits-up in situations that could’ve been _prevented_ had they of—it doesn’t matter. 

He’s _tired_. Being here, power-drained and hungry, has left him in a state of exhaustion he’s familiar with, but that fact alone doesn’t help. 

And the fact that this isn’t something he’d inflicted upon himself, he’d in fact been defeated; it infuriates him. 

And this kind of fury simmers unkindly in his bones, shearing him down little by little, clippings of calm and collection descended to someplace elsewhere amongst the tendons of rage. It’s laughable, really, his loss of control. It’s something he certainly isn’t _used_ to, and something he doesn’t want to _get_ used to. 

It shouldn’t be taken into consideration at all. He should’ve never slipped up. 

“You could be,” Robert breaks Five’s strangled strains of thoughts with a low, dark hum. “Look at you, sitting here all pretty for me. Look at your face.”

And with that, he reaches forward and strokes the back of his palm across Five’s cheek. It’s sudden, unexpected, and his hand is rough and scratchy and none too gentle across his skin.

Five remembers The Handler, and how she’d been all soft strokes and tender touches and gentle caresses all in a day's intimidation. It was her tactic of unsettling him, a narrow way of getting under his skin in a way she knew of which he couldn’t interfere. He couldn’t stop her; because that would mean she won. And Five doesn’t like to lose.

Her hands had been feather-like and smooth, a light touch on him almost disguised well enough to be considered sympathetic. She always had been that way. Petting him, poking him, concealed in an act of something nothing other than loving. If only one knew the intentions behind them. God, he hated her.

But now, with Robert's hands so cold and wrought and wrong on his skin, he nearly, nearly wishes it were her. 

He knew her. She knew him. They were pathetic and devious and sharp in the eyes, and they danced around one another for decades. She was good and he was the best, and with her he at least knew something of what to expect. He always had the upper hand. 

But with Robert, he feels clueless and lost and like a stupid child again. He feels young and mindless and defeated, twisted deep into his gut and embedded there from memories of long ago with dear old Dad, the feelings unridden and sored and crusted with brutal burial from his childhood.

And that’s how he’d always handled his feelings. Unacknowledged, ignored, set to sail in a glistening glaze-away under the sea of his soles, left to tangle down in the depths of emotions.

He grits his teeth, squaring his jaw as Robert traces the pads of his fingers down the bridge of his nose, across his cheekbone. His face is cupped into a cruel grasp, fingertips pressing not-too-soft not-too-hard into his temples. A warning.

“So beautiful,” Robert murmurs. He looks stupid. Five wants to kick him.

He’s not sure what he should say. If he should say anything at all; so he opts for silence. He doesn’t break eye contact, his own green orbs settled on a fine, hard stare. 

And after a round of complete nothing, he retrieves a harsh, cutting slap across the face. It stings, but it’s a table corner to the hip, for him. 

“Speak when you are spoken to,” Robert demands, eerily calm as Five bites his inner cheek _hard_ to stop the hiss threatening to escape his lips. 

“I didn’t know you were expecting an answer,” Five says, a rat-like snarl at the corners of his mouth.

“I complimented you,” says Robert, indignantly. “I expect a thank you.”

Five thinks about all the ways he would find deep, deep pleasure in slicing out this man's throat. “ _Thank_ _you_ ,” he says, with great difficulty.

“You’re welcome,” Robert says, and that’s that.

Really, it was only the beginning.

—

Dehydration is not new to Five.

After forty-five years of just surviving in the apocalypse, this is child’s play to him. It’s nothing he can’t handle.

That doesn’t make it any less pleasant.

His lips are chapped and very sore. His throat is scratchy, clawing at him in dire need of thirst. He is starting to feel dizzy more often than not and a sick, nauseous burble blends in his stomach in a constant.

Not only that, they have fallen into routine.

Five copped pretty quickly his limits in this new life, and with that came the raging realisation that without his power, mobile ability, sense of awareness and will to _live_ , he’s almost entirely useless.

He can’t jump, can’t breathe properly, can barely _see_ properly anymore. There’s always this tight, caged feeling suffocating his chest like a punctured windpipe, painful and dangerous and as exhausting as the rest.

The apocalypse hadn’t even been this cruel to him. At least, not this early on.

But there Five had learnt to adapt. He learnt how to survive, to correct his instinct, to fuel his body and find hope and to _keep on going._

Here, he is restricted to nothing but his own mind. Nothing but his thoughts captured like the rest of him, and perhaps that would’ve worked before but without his moving and _being_ and his brain strapped down and confined to dark emptiness . . . what’s there left to give?

And he is drugged and stripped and torn away piece by piece, and he is a lamp with only sparks of light left, holding on by the last surges of electricity that wears him out. And he is the final bits of engine running on droplets of fuel, the thread of clothing threatening to snap.

And Robert is the bulb, the tank, and the scissors all at once.

And Five is falling, down, down, down.

— 

Five wonders if his siblings miss him.

He wonders if they know he hasn’t skipped out on them again, prowling the worlds of old decades and fucked-up timelines and ever-lasting apocalypses and triggered doomsday’s. He wonders if they know he is still here, with them, but still so very far away.

He wonders if they are looking for him. If they are trying to get him home, back to them where he belongs. 

Back where he spent forty-five years trying to get to. Trying to get to _them_. His stupid siblings that are his beating heart. 

He loves them so much it hurts.

He wonders if they love him too.

— 

“Your test results are coming back strange,” Robert says, on the twelfth hour of the fiftieth day. “Your powers seem to be deteriorating. And you’re not as pretty as you used to be.”

 _Please let that mean you’re letting me go,_ Five thinks, closing his eyes as Robert peers closer at him. _Please, please._

“We’ll have to change that,” the man says, sinking Five’s heart as he unchains him and latches onto his arm. He fumbles with his back pocket for a moment, before pulling out a cable tie with a dark glint in his eye. “Don’t move.”

He ties his wrist with Five’s—Five; who is so much smaller, thinner, weaker. His arms are noodles, sticks ready to break. He has never felt so small, and he hates it so.

“Where are we going?” He gripes, as he’s dragged on unsteady, trembling legs out of the basement. “What the fuck—”

Robert turns and shoves him so hard against the wall the wind is knocked out of him, heart thumping fast as the blood rushes to his head. His spine is bruised enough as it is already, layers of painted purples and blacks and greens in wheels across his back. He can’t afford another.

He thinks his rib is cracked when he sucks in as Robert presses up on his chest, arms pinned up above his head. He shuts his eyes again.

“Keep asking questions,” Robert growls, body caging dangerously over Five’s. “And we’ll see, won’t we?”

Five knows what he is capable of. He is the world's most dangerous assassin, the best of the best. There is nobody more efficient than him. 

He doesn’t know why he complies. He can’t remember when he started.

He can’t remember why he won’t stop, either.

— 

Five realises that if he doesn't get himself out, he will never be found.

Robert slinks ahead, tugging him along out of his doghouse. He sees, with a shattering heart, how hidden he really is. Nobody would ever think to look for him there.

In front of the door cut-out into the staircase down to the basement, is a marble, cabinet sink. It slides into place right underneath the cupboards, directly ahead of the lockaway that is Five’s current home.

It leads into an entirely different room. There are frames on the walls and mattered rugs on the floor. It looks like any normal room. There are shelves lined with books and clocks ticking above them. 

Five won’t ever be found.

He follows Robert mutely, tight-lipped and devastated. He stumbles up the wooden staircase with his wrist rubbing into the cable tie. He grips the bannister with a trembling hand.

It’s been almost two months since he’s left the basement. 

And it’s overwhelming, a little bit. He thought that—gosh, he thought that years and years surviving the end of the world would make this easier for him. He knows how to get used to inconsistency, to fight and flare against the unknown. But in all his time serving the days that weren’t, doesn’t make this any less than what it is.

Terrifying.

He can’t pick at why this is. Why it is so scary, haunting, chilling. Why it fractures the walls built up to block out the fear, but it does. It does, and it curls up somewhere inside him in a knot that would need the strongest sears to break.

Robert's house is nice. It’s all smooth tile and hardwood floor and silvered doorknobs and pretty purple curtains. The sofas are a touch of off-white and the coffee tables are glass. The wine cupboard looks more to be a display if anything and everything is modern and beautiful.

Five says nothing as Robert tugs him down a white-carpeted hallway into a pristine, spotless bathroom. The shower is open plan, the kind with no door and a large square shower head. The shampoo bottles are in recesses. It’s all very, very tidy.

Five swallows thickly. His heart is racing fast. “What are we doing in here?”

“What did I say about the questions?” Robert snarls, opening a drawer from the sink and pulling out a pair of scissors. He cuts the cable tie and Five’s arm hangs loose.

“Get undressed,” are Roberts' next words and Five almost feels his heart completely stop.

He blinks, staggering backwards. “Wh-what?”

“Clothes. Off.”

“Wha—with you just _standing_ there?”

Robert smirks and doesn’t reply. He crosses his arms and waits.

Five is aghast. Stubborn. “I’m not taking my clothes off.”

“You need to take them off to shower.”

Five narrows his eyes. “Uh, no. No I don’t.”

Robert takes a step forward. Low, threatening. He’s bigger than Five by a longshot, but it’s his mind Five is afraid of. His brows dip down into a displeased frown, hands curling into fists. He leans down to the boy’s height, walking forwards as Five steps backwards, back, back, back until he’s pressed up into the wall.

“I’ll play this with you all day,” Robert murmurs, placing a hand either side of Five’s head. “All, day. Don’t think for a second I won’t. You belong to me now, you will _do_ what I _say_.”

Five bites his lip. _Hit him,_ his conscience tells him. He’s so close. _Come on, pull down and flip. Get him where it hurts. Stand on his stupid face._

He slowly begins to remove his blazer. He can’t understand why he’s so defeated, so swollen inside and shattered. He hates this, he hates it so much. He wants to die as he removes his vest, watching as Robert moves to turn the shower on, the water coming down in a silky, strong pressure, hot and steamy and soothing.

His tie is next, and his fingers shake prematurely as he undoes it, pulling it over his head and dropping it into the pile of his clothing. He can barely stand to unbutton his shirt, not with him just _watching_.

He’s never felt so uncomfortable in his life.

He’s left in his undervest and shorts. He toes the socks off on each leg, swallowing all the while. His mind adverts back to his siblings, and he thinks shamefully of what they would do if they saw him right now. What _he_ would do if they saw him.

He thinks of his father, and his mother, and he feels a flush creep up his neck and tint his ears in a red, embarrassed hue. He feels exposed and dirty, and vulnerable and _scared_.

Roberts eyes trail up and down his upper body, lingering on his torso. Five looks away, gritting his teeth. He doesn’t know what there is to look at. He’s all ribby and skinny and tainted with scars and hate marks. Not exactly much to admire.

“Shorts.” Robert nods towards his clothed lower body. “Everything. Off.”

“Can’t I keep my boxers on?” Five says, and he hates how pathetic he sounds. He didn’t—he didn’t spend practically his entire life fighting against eternity to become this _weak._

“No.”

Five doesn’t do anything for a minute. He stands there, feet frozen against the white tiles and fingernails digging moons into his palms as he fights and fights and fights with himself. There’s an unscathed battle in his head, an army of treacherous thoughts copper and cold and bloody in his hold. He feels a million things at once and at the same time nothing at all.

Robert hisses, “if you don’t take them off I will take them off _for_ you.”

And Five hates the sound of that even more, so he begrudgingly slides the shorts off, feeling his eyes burn stupidly as the boxers come off, as well.

He’s standing there naked, arms folded and chin tucked to his chest. Robert stands before him, openly admiring. He has no shame, this man. No shame at all.

“I take back what I said earlier,” he muses, smirking. “You’re even prettier than I thought.”

“I’m getting in the shower,” Five says, turning to step past him. He doesn’t get a chance before he’s being dragged backwards into a tight embrace, large arms encircling around him as a hot breath ghosts his neck. Robert noses at his jaw, fingers tangling themselves in Five’s hair to tilt his head and expose his neck further, where he licks tenderly in a soft gesture before he grips and _bites_.

Five hisses loudly, digging his heel into the floor in anguish. He twists his body, trying to contort himself out of the arms. Amidst his struggling, Robert locks a leg around him and uses a hand to grab at his neck, applying more pressure the longer he fights. 

Five gurgles in the strangled choke, burbling up spit that dribbles down the corner of his mouth. He struggles to catch a breath, eyes watering as the hold on his neck tightens. He can’t breathe. 

He kicks out, flailing desperately. He fists into Robert’s arms, begging him to _let go, let fucking go._

“I will release you,” Robert whispers. “And you will obey me. Do you understand?”

Frantic nodding. 

“Good.”

He unwraps his fingers from around Five’s neck and thumps him in the back to send him stumbling forwards, right into the shower. The hot water almost burns as it drips down his body, and Robert watches with gleeful eyes.

He watches for a little while, until he seems to get bored. “I’ll be outside,” he says, as he turns on his heel. “You have five more minutes.”

As soon as the door closes, Five sinks to his knees and sobs.

—

“What are you good at?” Robert asks him.

“Lot’s of things,” Five replies, meek. He is lying on his new bed. Well, if you could call it that. His head is tilted off the side of it, looking up to the ceiling where there seems to be a drainage leak.

“Tell me about them.”

Five is starved and exhausted and his powers don’t work anymore. Funny thing is, he’s never felt anymore trapped other than here, apocalypse be damned. “Math. Physics.” He doesn’t mention assassination.

“That’s all?” Robert sneers, turning on him suddenly. He’s close by, but down here there isn’t much room for him to be very far. “That’s a bit pathetic. I didn’t peg you for a nerd.”

“I’m intelligent,” Five answers, monotonously. “I don’t obsess over comic books. I'm a genius.”

“Right,” Robert says. 

Five closes his eyes again. He’s been doing that a lot recently. “When can I go home?”

The only sound for the next while is the dripping from the ceiling. It’s painfully quiet, before Robert inhales a sharp breath. “What did you just say?”

“I asked when I can go home.”

Five isn’t prepared for the sly smack across the face. Or the nails pinched into his arm as a hand comes up to slug him about the head. He’s dragged off the bed, thrown onto the floor as a knee digs into his sternum and the wind is knocked out of him once again.

“This _is_ your home,” Robert mutters, angry, so angry. “Don’t you ever _f_ _ucking_ ask me that again.”

Five takes the beatings as quietly as he can. Once upon a time he would’ve fought back, fought like the trained asshole he was. But once upon a time he was prideful and full of power, and once upon a time he wasn’t afraid of this man.

Things are different, now.

— 

The first time Robert kisses Five is something Five wants to forget forever.

It’s hot and wet and unexpected and very, very scary.

It’s night-time, and they are upstairs with the windows boarded up. But through them the moon still shines and the stars are just as bright, and Five remembers that the world is carrying on without him in it.

Ironic, really. But it makes him feel good, too. This is what he came back for, all along.

The living room is elegant and untouched, the sofas comfortable but unused. The only source of light is from the lamp in the corner. It’s the tall kind, one with several small bulbs attached to it. It radiates a soft, gentle glow, warm and homey and kind—but Five feels the opposite as he sits stiffly next to Robert.

He is drinking wine. He is clean shaved, freshly washed and smelling good. He’s dressed in a nice shirt and black pants, sleeves rolled up and hair floppy. He is handsome, Five thinks, but that doesn’t change anything. He’s still a raging dick.

“Do you know how beautiful you are?” Robert says, after his fifth glass, and Five tries not to tremble. He curls his feet inwards.

He isn’t wearing the academy uniform anymore, and he mostly hates it because that was the only thing tying him back to home. The one thing he had left. The same thing happened in the apocalypse—but that was different. He needed clothing to survive, and he’d grown out of it anyways. 

Robert has him clothed in this large t-shirt that covers his entire frame like a dress, barely underwear and too-large socks that slip down his feet. He’s so cold.

Robert nudges him. The wine always makes him gentler, surprisingly. “Do you?” He repeats, softly.

Five doesn’t know what to say. Yes? No? What answer is he looking for?

“I—I guess so?” He stammers, holding his knees, and Robert laughs, not unkindly.

“You are. I’ve never met anyone as pretty—I didn’t think it was possible. I’m sorry if you’ve never been told before.”

Five swallows. Threads carefully. “I’ve never cared before. It never mattered to me.” He had other things to worry about other than how beautiful he was. The world had ended, for fucks sake.

Robert places two fingers on his chin, turns his head to face him. He stares at him for a minute. “God, Five. Fuck, you’re gorgeous.”

Five’s lower lip trembles. “Thank you.”

Robert breathes heavily through his nose, leaning in closer. “Who do you belong to?”

Five feels the swelling in his heart, the low pumps in his stomach. He feels the racing in his veins, the rapid flow in his blood. His fingers shake. “You.”

“That’s right,” Robert hums, and kisses him.

And Five, out of instinct, draws back; tries to turn away, but a hand comes up to cup the back of his head, holding it in place. 

Five is too overwhelmed to think about how he has never kissed anyone before. 

It feels strange, and it feels scary and he feels trapped, but Robert's mouth is soft and warm and gentler than he is. Five realises that as an arm circles his waist to pull him in closer, he doesn’t hate it.

No, he does hate it. He hates it so much.

(He doesn’t.)

Robert kisses him softly, tenderly, before it turns into something more eager, passionate. He sucks on Five’s lower lip and his thumbs come up to trace against his cheekbones.

And a really big part of Five wants to cry.

He finds himself being lifted under the arms and deposited onto the man's lap, straddling him as the kiss deepens further. It feels terribly wrong. 

Robert breaks away with a small hitch of breath. “Do you know how to grind, baby?” 

“How to what?” Five mutters, and his head feels like jelly, oozy and flaccid and subservient. He ignores the name, trying to think about how he is fifty-eight and not a fucking thirteen-year-old. He’s not sure which is worse, in this scenario.

Roberts hands grip his hips, tight and unforgiving. He slowly moves them in a circular motion, as he himself tilts his head back in a low, strangled groan. “Feels good, doesn’t it?” He murmurs, and Five nods just to please him.

(It does feel good. His body is young and prepubescent and full of hormones. Of course it feels good.)

He doesn’t realise that he’s rolling his hips without Robert's aid until the hands entangle in his hair and grip his back. That he’s doing it to chase his own pleasure. He feels sick when he does, and then he thinks of Dolores and he suddenly wants to die. 

“That’s it,” Robert is murmuring into his ear, encouraging. “Faster, baby. Make yourself feel good.”

Five does as he’s told and he wants to cry the entire time. “I don’t—I don’t think—I’m not supposed to—”

“Shh,” Robert coaxes, gentling him backwards into the sofa, climbing over him and spreading his legs to fit inside them. He kisses him again, grinding hard into Five’s underwear where he’s hopelessly turned on.

Five turns his head away, shutting his eyes and the rest of the world out. His wrists are being pressed into the cushions and there’s sparks and sparks of pleasure building in his lower stomach. He can’t help the subconscious wiggling—adjusting himself so Robert will rub against that exact spot—

“I—mhm, _fuck—_ ” he gasps, eyes rolling to the back of his head. _Stop_ , he’s telling himself, as the steady streams of tears trickle down his face. _Stop enjoying this you freak!_

Robert hums low in his throat, picking up his pace as he starts to mouth at Five’s throat. He kisses along his jaw, tugging him toward his mouth by his hair as he leans down to kiss him properly. It’s messy and all tongue and teeth, clashing and scraping as Five feels his pelvis seize up, thighs clenching and body trembling—

And then it’s gone.

Robert halts his movement, collapsing on top of Five with heavy breaths. His groin circles in aftershocks, coming down from his high. He sighs into Five’s neck, inhaling in what seems to be his scent. 

Five wriggles underneath him. He’s still so painfully hard. And disgusted with himself.

“I knew you’d like that,” Robert murmurs, and kisses between his brows. “You’re so sweet.”

“Hurts,” Five mumbles, eyes still shut. He cants his hip upwards in demonstration, trying to get back that friction. It helps that all he’s wearing is boxers, and he tries to ignore the stabs of betrayal in his gut as he bucks up.

“Does it, now?” Robert grins, kissing his shoulder. “Let’s take care of that, will we?”

The rest is a blur, really. Five remembers the praise, the comments on how pretty and soft he is. How smooth and delicate. He remembers the mouth on his inner thighs and the mouth _on him_ , and he remembers how it felt so good, and how he’d whined and thrown his head back against the cushions, oversensitive and supple and putty in Robert’s hands.

He remembers crying. He remembers throwing up on the floor of the basement, smashing his fists against the silver glass mirror above the sink. He remembers curling up in a ball and hating himself for what was.

Hating himself for what was to come.

—

They don’t have sex.

Five is grateful because he’s not sure he is physically or emotionally capable of coping with that. He is relearning human contact, perhaps in the worst way possible, and he thinks of his siblings and their smiles and their tender touches and he wishes it was them he was relearning with.

Robert repeats the same actions only sometimes. It never goes farther than what it is. He never asks for more. Five crosses his fingers every time because the thought of sucking this man off unsettles something deep in his bones.

But everything else becomes normal.

He can’t tell how long he’s been gone for.

He can’t tell how long ago he stopped trying to get back, either.

— 

Five tries jumping and his head feels like it’s been stapled and plastered to a brick wall. 

The fizziness electrocutes the downs of his soul, and his brain feels like it’s been catapulted into a saw machine and stitched up by stud-rings. His legs are glob and rubble for a while, and his ears scream and scream and scream.

 _He did something to me,_ he realises, clawing at the ground as the world tips sideways. _That piece of shit did something to me._

Worst thing is, he can’t even think of what. He wonders if whatever it is has made him considerably stupider, too. He sure feels it. He’s never felt more incompetent in his life. His siblings could outsmart him at this stage, and that tells a lot.

He misses them so.

— 

“Can I have a peanut-butter and marshmallow sandwich?” Five asks.

Robert looks up from where he’s reading the paper. It’s a sunny day out, the sun is dancing or some shit. His eyes look refreshed. He hadn’t been sleeping the past few nights.

The kitchen has scopes of light filtering in through the blinds, the yellow rays tinting the cream walls in a pretty, pretty glow. It must be summer, now. Isn’t it? 

“Can you what?” Robert says, eyes darting back to his page. He shakes out the paper, squinting as if trying to find the spot he was at before. “That sounds ridiculous.”

“It—it tastes nice,” Five says. He’s perched on the table, legs swinging, sewing up some torn socks and shirts with holes in them. His fingers are nimble and bruised, nails chewed raw. He avoids looking at them as he stares longingly at the bread bin.

“I don’t have marshmallows,” Robert replies curtly. Five is crestfallen.

“Oh.”

Robert sighs, then. “I can get some.”

Five doesn’t say anything for a minute, stitching quietly. “. . . Really?”

“Yeah,” Robert says, folding over the paper. He stands up and saunters over to where Five is on the island. He studies him. “What for?”

Five wonders if he should tell him about Vanya. About how she would leave the lights on and make a sandwich for him in case he found his way home during the night—but that thought has his throat clogging up, chest tightening in this ugly way that has him glaring at the needle in his hands. “No reason. I used to eat them all the time.”

He wonders if Vanya is still making them at home. Wondering if he’ll ever come back, this time. If they’ll have to wait another seventeen years before they see him again.

And that thought makes him angry. 

He feels a bitter spite crawl up his stomach as he shoves the needle through the material, jaw clenching and toes curling in pent up rage. He wants to scream—at least in the apocalypse he could scream as loud as he wanted. Dolores would scream with him. And then she would hold him as he cried.

Christ, he wants his fucking wife.

“What’s the matter with you, hm?” Robert teases, slapping Five’s cheek with the back of his hand. “What’s got your panties in a twist?”

Five grits his teeth for a minute. His nostrils flare. “Nothing.”

“Liar,” Robert provokes him, pushing his head. “Go on. What’s bothering you?”

“I want,” Five swallows, face screwing up. “To go _home_.”

He waits. Waits for Robert’s face to twist in anger, to get the smack, the whelt, the beating to the backside. He waits for the knee-up and the bloody nose and the cracked bone parts.

Robert doesn’t say anything. His face doesn’t twitch. For some reason, Five is more afraid of that if anything.

He turns and walks away. “Forget about the sandwich,” he says, flopping back down onto the sofa. He lifts his legs to rest on the pouff. “And lunch and dinner, too.”

Five feels his heart plummet. He feels it rise in insanity, too.

—

He starves for three days.

He sees stars. 

He remembers the cockroaches. The bugs. The bad twinkie.

He thinks he’s dying.

—

He’s chained again.

Robert kisses his mouth and slaps his cheek. Five can’t move and there are bruises all over his skin. He feels dizzy. He wonders if this is how it will end.

He hopes not. He isn’t ready to give up yet.

He has so much more left to do.

—

“I want to see the stars.”

It’s a controversial thing to say, but Robert is in a good mood and Five has been behaving. Better than before, at least. There has been improvement. He has yet to get his sandwiches, but he has other things on his mind.

“You want to see the stars,” Robert repeats. He sounds amused. “Go look out the window, then.”

“Can I go out to the garden?” Five asks, before he can second guess himself. He’s been wanting to go outside for a long time now. It’s been four months since. He just wants the air on his face. The ground beneath his feet.

Robert ponders over this for a while before he comes to a decision. “Get me a cable tie.”

Five hurries to do as he’s told, holding out his wrist once he retrieves said object from the second kitchen drawer. The first drawer, with all the knives, is locked all the time. Pity.

Robert ties their wrists together with the cable tie, tight and secure, before he rolls his eyes and drags Five through the house. Once he lifts a hand to unlock the back door, Five’s breath hitches. His heart begins to thump loudly—he can’t believe this is real.

And then he’s dragged outside, where the cool wind nips his face and the quenched roots and wands come out to say hello. The leaves are dark and so is the sky; the petals are intricate in their delicacy, the buttercups golden amid the night sky. 

The moon casts all the light, and from her alone Five can see the bonsai trees lined on the freshly cut lawn, the large pond and its lapping frogs centered in the middle with lily pads and flowers. A wooden bridge arches over it, ivy and tendrils growing over it in every direction.

Five is barefoot and bare-hearted, feeling everything come rushing toward him too-fast too-much, and as he sinks his feet into the dewy grass his soul blooms with the daffodils and primroses, aching for something more.

He takes a few tentative steps forward, letting the moss rolled out like carpet slither between his toes. Robert is right behind him, stuck to his arm, but Five almost forgets as he looks around and simply _breathes_.

The stars shine like sugar spilt onto black marble, and Five watches them twinkle in severed constellations, having seen millions of lives and millions of moments—and he realises that they are the same stars he’s seen forever. In all his times, all over the world. All under the same sky.

The same sky his siblings may be watching, too.

His heart leaps through the stars, back to the academy where he belongs. Where he hopes his siblings are waiting for him. Missing him. 

And he hopes they miss him as much as he misses them.

 _I’m coming home,_ he thinks. _I’m coming home._

Robert tugs at his wrist. “Right. You’ve had your fun, let’s go.”

Five digs his feet into the grass, resistant, desperate. He makes a pathetic, whiny noise at the back of his throat, pointing to the sky. “Please,” he whispers, and he feels so weak. “Please, I just want to see.”

Robert growls, tugging him harder. “You’ve seen _enough_.”

Five fights back, pulling away with as much force as he can. The latches onto Roberts arm with his free hand, eyes narrowed in a dangerous glare as he claws at the skin. “You’re just as tied to me as I am to you,” he hisses, fighting for triumph.

Robert smacks him hard then, barely registering what he’s said before backhanding him across the face and dragging him back inside. It doesn’t stop in there, the hits are brutal and ruthless and Five can’t even fight back. He hides, and he cries because he’s a coward that curls up and hides, and Robert bashes him senseless until his tears are bloody and his skull is black.

Five doesn’t ask to go out to the garden after that.

—

He’s chained for another three days. 

He stops fighting.

—

He starts to lose his mind in the basement.

He lost his mind in the apocalypse but not really. Dolores was there and she held him together, even if only a little, she did, she did and he wishes she were here to do it all again.

He wants to tell stupid jokes that only she would laugh at, and he wants her to chastise him for drinking to much and fret over him and tell him everything is going to be okay when he stops believing it himself. She was always there to pick up what pieces broke off of him, and she was always there to mend him back together.

He cries a lot more now than he did then. He remembers being in his twenties and wondering when he’d become so numb. Newlywed with Dolores and sick of the world, and he hadn’t felt an ounce of anything. Perhaps love, at the time, but even that ratted out and wrung him dry.

He wonders if being back in this body is messing with his emotions. All that prepubescent bullshit. He thinks that’s it. He’d only cried a few times in the apocalypse before he switched off, and he’s waiting for his brain to do the same thing all over again.

He cried over his siblings that he didn’t even recognise because he never got to watch them grow. He cried over Ben and Vanya who’s bodies he never found. He cried over his father, his mother, and Pogo, for fucks sake. He cried over the loss of the ones he always loved, the ones he still loves. The ones who don’t even _realise_ how much he loves.

And he loves them more than anything on this stupid, godforsaken planet.

They’re the only things keeping him going, these days. They’ve kept him going all days of days, and he tells himself that they will know as soon as he finds them again. He can’t waste anymore time. This world is too fucked up for them not to know what he did for them. What he does for them, and what they do for him. What’s the _fucking_ point?

Fuck. He would give anything to see them again.

—

He smashes his mirror and Robert nearly kills him.

It’s somewhat a moment of epiphany, if you will. He stares and stares and stares at himself until his face crumples and tears apart and his fist comes up to break the sight of somebody broken.

“You’re a _fucking_ idiot,” he seethes at his reflection, knuckles white and eyes black. “You’re pathetic. You’re _weak_. Look at you! Look where you are! Get the hell out of here! Go home!”

The shards splinter everywhere, the fragments of his face shattered in tiny pieces all over the floor. It looks as destroyed as he feels, and he falls right there and then, in a heap on top of the thousand glittering segments. It showers him in sharp silvers and he cries until his throat is hoarse.

And Robert comes in and nearly kills him.

He’s left with a purple neck and red eyes sored at the sides, a banged up head and a nose running a marathon of blood. His fingers twitch in chime with his feet, body spasming in shock. He’s been beaten before, tortured, even, but nothing like this. Maybe it’s the tolerance of this body that makes it so much harder, but Five is no stranger to pain.

But this is all too unfamiliar to him.

He wonders, yet again, if this is the end.

—

“Luther,” Five whispers. He doesn’t know what time it is, but he knows it’s night. “Diego. Allison. Klaus. B-Ben. Vanya.”

He curls his fists into his sheets. Tucks his head into his shoulder. He imagines that they are there beside him, all around his room. Allison would be pulling the blanket over him, Diego would be perched on the chair, knife in hand. Klaus would probably be right next to him, shamelessly huddling close. Luther would sit on the floor beside his face and offer a hand of reassurance. And Vanya—Vanya would smile her fond smile and lay on his other side, and she would tuck his hair back with timid fingers and soft eyes, and he would fall asleep with all of his siblings watching over him. 

Instead he is here, and he is so very alone.

“Luther,” he whispers again. “Diego. Allison. Klaus. Ben. Vanya.”

He pulls the sheets over his head. They’re thin and scratchy but they’re all he’s got. He feels the droplets sail down his cheeks, drip down his chin. “I’m sorry,” he closes his eyes. “I miss you.”

He just wants to go home.

—

“What did you do to my powers?” Five says. It’s July, he thinks, and he’s cold with only blood on his bones. The weight loss hasn’t treated him well, and his hair has thinned as well as his face. It doesn’t look good.

“Not sure,” Robert appears to answer honestly, eating apple tart right in front of Five’s growling stomach. “The tests came back all weird. Then they just stopped working. Has that ever happened to you before?”

A manic part of Five has the hysterical urge to laugh. “Once.”

“Yeah?” Robert says. He’s cold. “Then why’d you ask me, hm? If you already knew?”

Five feels fire fuel his belly. “Because nothing _happened_ , this time. Last time I got stuck in an apocalypse—this time, I did nothing. Care to explain, Robert?”

Robert chews slowly. Five has his two hands flat out on the table, elbows up and face dark. His nose is twitching in a sneer and the t-shirt he’s been given slips off his shoulder blades.

The biggest surprise is that Robert doesn’t even get mad. He sits back, amused. “Apocalypse, huh?”

“For _forty-five_ years,” Five hisses. “I was _alone_. And then I come back and _this_ is what I have to deal with. Jesus, if I had known this would’ve been the outcome I would’ve left the world to fucking vaporize.”

He doesn’t mean it, he doesn’t even mean it as he says it, but he’s bitter inside, soured and spiteful and arrogant as he’s always been. His eye twitches as Robert stops chewing to stare at him again.

“Forty-five years? Then how—”

“I got the calculations wrong,” Five mutters, slumping back into the kitchen chair. “Disproportionate. And now I’m stuck in this _twip_ of a body.”

“I like it,” Robert muses, with a sick grin. “It’s very pretty.”

“I don’t care,” Five spits, angrily, and pulls his knees to his chest. “You know, I would live a million other apocalypses if it meant I never met you.”

Robert goes still. “I doubt you mean that.”

Five leans forward, anger sizzled on his tongue. “Oh, but Robert,” he smirks. “I meant every last word.”

—

  
  


He’s very weak by the beginning of August. 

He wants his powers back, his family back, his wife back, his strength back. He feels like a goddamn vegetable.

He doesn’t do a whole lot anymore. Robert still kisses him and touches him and spreads him apart, and he closes his eyes and can’t even enjoy it even if his body does. He hates it. He hates everything.

He doesn’t see the sun or the moon shine or even the stars gallop in the sky. He feels sick most of the time, irrationally ill. He wonders if he has some sort of deathly infection that will just kill him off eventually. He wonders if he can give the infection to Robert.

He’s not sure if it’s that he’s hoping for. 

After all, only one of them will survive.

—

There’s a night where Five cries so hard he makes himself sick.

Robert finds him in that state, curled up on the floor with puke by his face and bile slithering down his chin. His eyes are puffy and worn and exhausted and he’s whimpering like a useless stray cat left to rot in a gutter.

“What the hell happened?” Robert is panicking, kicking toys and books and games he’d gradually gifted Five with over time out of the way, stepping tediously over the vomit on the floor. He makes a face of disgust. “What on Earth is wrong with you, you little _mutant_?!”

“I-I got sick,” Five burbles, holding onto himself as his shoulders shake with sobs. He looks absolutely pathetic, trembling head to toe. It’s one of the worst he’s ever been, surprisingly, and Robert half takes pity on him.

“Okay, okay, come up, come on, stop crying, there now, you’re alright,” he says, almost like it’s a script. He hauls Five to his feet and sort of just clasps onto him for a minute whilst he tries to figure out how to handle the situation. “Um—lie down there, and don’t move. Just lie down and stop that damn crying.”

“I’ll clean it,” Five garbles, rubbing at his eyes, his chin. He looks about ten years old. His hair has grown out, a bird's nest on his head. He looks wrecked. “I’ll—I’ll wash the floor, I just need—”

“Stop, stop it, Christ,” Robert snaps, awkwardly looking around the miniature basement to find something to mop up the vomit. “I can’t listen to you anymore, just shut it and let me deal with this, alright?”

Five doesn’t answer, sniffling instead. He has no idea what’s gotten into him tonight. Why he’s acting this way. Why he’s _been_ acting this way. He’s not a child. He’s not. Why is he acting like a child?

Why can’t he help it?

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, when Robert’s just about finished up. There’s a stillness in movement, the dark only showing an outline silhouette of Robert’s figure, but Five can still make him out as he moves towards him.

He feels a small, warm kiss on his forehead. “It’s alright, sweetness. You can’t help being a nasty little thing, can you?”

Five holds his breath until he leaves.

He cries for the rest of the night.

—

“Luther, Diego, Allison, Klaus, Vanya. Vanya, Klaus, Allison, Diego, Luther.”

Five chants his siblings' names in a quiet murmur, hugging his pillow to his chest. He’s waiting for Robert to come wake him with breakfast; barely two slices of bread and butter and orange juice.

He’s so, so tired. 

And he’s slowly coming to terms with the fact that he really wants a fucking hug.

He thinks about home again. He stopped thinking about the _when_ and started thinking about the _if_ a long time ago, but he closes his eyes and imagines going home. Seeing them again. Seeing their faces, their smiles, their eye rolls. 

He thinks about Klaus’ ridiculous outfits and Luther's overcoat and Diego’s weird black vigilante suit and Allison’s new 60’s hairdo and Vanya's violin, and his heart aches in his hands.

“Please keep looking for me,” he whispers, as he hears the creaks and thuds of Robert upstairs. “I’m not gone again. I’m still here.”

_Please don’t give up on me._

—

The days fold into one. Time becomes intangible, morning and night suddenly indecipherable. Five counts sun rays like clockwork on his arm, but his mind is stuffed with wet cotton and he’s having a hard time telling what’s real and what’s not, anymore.

It’s been seven months and he’s going crazy.

Because this is a whole new type of captivity. Back in the apocalypse he’d been held hostage by the last ropes of the world, tight around him and suffocating where he undid the knots. Here he is a whale in a fish tank; swimming in circles endlessly. No purpose, no meaning, no beginning and no end. Just circles every single day, wondering if this is it forever.

And what is, forever?

He hopes it isn’t this.

—

They have sex.

Five doesn’t want it. He knows he doesn’t want it. He cries as it happens, hand over his mouth to muffle the sobs as Robert groans harshly into his ear. He feels so disgusting. 

He hadn’t even said anything. Just accepted his fate. And he hates himself for it. Why can’t he fight _back_? Why can’t he push him off? What is _wrong_ with him?

Robert is unkind about the ordeal, uncharacteristic of him compared to the gentle ruts and dry humping and sweet praise. He’d been so soft before, kissing Five’s collarbones and telling him how beautiful he was.

Now he is rough and aggressive, handsy and cruel with his fingers. He’s not even all mouth like before; in fact he doesn’t even kiss Five. He just tears him apart in the worst way possible. Destroys him inside out, and it’s painful. 

It’s scary, too.

It hurts. It hurts physically almost as much as it does emotionally. He doesn’t think he’s going to ever be able to get over this, even while it’s happening. He just cries throughout it, beginning to the end, and Robert licks his tears and continues to take everything from him.

It isn’t sex. Robert rapes him.

—

Five can’t walk for two days.

He’s torn, down there. There’s dried blood and other body fluids griming where it’s sore, and his hands rip at his hair and his throat screeches dry and he cries and cries and cries.

—

Things get impossibly worse.

The days get messier and Robert gets meaner. Five is commanded to wear a collar that shocks and fries his brain when he steps out of line, and it’s been so long since he’s seen daylight he’s forgetting the harmonies of birdsong. The endless symphonies of natured orchestra, pretty in their keys of running rivers and wind rustling through the cherry trees.

It’s been almost a year and Five wants nothing more than to be glazed in the red-hot sun, tough on his bones and sizzling on his toes. He wants to be buried in the heat, burnt to the ground.

And he wants Robert burned with him.

The collar keeps him checked. He does nothing but pace the basement or fall pliant to his bed, confined to nothing. He’s either moving like a non-stop spinning top out of control, or he’s putty to the sheets, lethargic and fatigued and ten screws too loose.

Robert has only shocked him once but that’s enough to keep Five from testing the waters.

“We need a new name for you,” Robert suggests one of the days. He is in the basement with Five, sitting on the three-legged stool and watching him with indifferent fascination. “What do you think?”

“My name is Five,” Five replies, indignantly. He’s crossed-legged on the floor picking at his lunch. “I don’t want anything different.”

“Well I do and you do as I say, don’t you?” Robert narrows his eyes in a warning. Five shrinks back. 

He would say that Robert reminds him a lot of his father, but he isn’t sure that’s the case. They are both cruel and heartless and care much too little, if even at all, but entirely for different reasons. His father had been cold and distant and insufferably clever, waves of intelligence radiating off of him wherever he walked. He held himself with the grace of a mastered craftist at his own art—that of the creation and destruction of his children. 

Robert is sly and careful and plans with spiteful threads. He spins the wheel with thorns on his fingers and is selective on who he pricks; but whoever is chosen is bound to suffer. He is a manipulator like Hargreeves, a skilled conniver down to the root. He is evil through skin and teeth, and his intentions are nothing but for his own self sufficiency.

No, Robert is much more terrifying than Reginald ever will be.

And he is dangerously obsessed with Five.

“Go on. You pick. Even another number. All you’re good for anyways,” he spits. Five crunches the toast in his hands to crumbs.

He thinks of his last encounter with his father in Dallas. He thinks of his siblings. He thinks of Diego. _Team zero, eh?_

“Zero,” he says, stuffing the food into his mouth. He chews for a moment. “You can call me zero.”

Robert snorts. “Fitting.”

Five doesn’t say anything. He finishes his lunch in silence. He thinks to himself because his thoughts are his own and nobody can take them away.

_My name is Five Hargreeves._

_I am Five._

_Five._

—

  
  


“We’re going on a trip, you and me,” Robert announces over breakfast. He has Five playing housewife in setting up the cutlery, shakily placing down the glass cups and plates in the correct order.

“Where are we going?” Five asks, feeling his heart skyrocket in hope.

“To the supermarket,” Robert says, reading over the paper. He doesn’t make eye contact as Five flutters around the kitchen in a frenzy, omelettes sizzling in the pan. “I’m bringing you with me on some very easy terms and conditions, you understand?”

Five nods mutely as he sets the eggs down on each of their plates, careful to give himself much less than desired. It’s either a little or nothing, according to Robert.

“Firstly,” Robert starts, digging in. “If you try to make any noise or scream, I will kill you. You obey me, understand? _Obey_ me.”

Five continues nodding.

“Who do you belong to?”

“You.” It’s said without hesitance.

“Good.” Robert continues cutting up his omelette. “Secondly, you don’t leave my side. You keep that head down and look at nobody. This is a reward. I’m _trusting_ you. If you try to pull a single thing there won’t be a second before you’re dead.”

Five isn’t worried about dying. He never has been, but he nods anyways. He feels his body tremble in newfound excitement. He can barely contain the smile from his face, swallowing to smooth his expression. He can’t bite back a grin as he drinks his orange juice. _He’s going outside._

“You’ve been so good for me, I figured you deserved something.” Robert still doesn’t look up as he eats, chopping up the egg to small pieces. “Such a good boy, haven’t you been?”

“Yes, sir.”

“There we go.”

Five doesn’t answer to that. He finishes the rest of his egg mutely, careful not to say or do anything to get himself reprimanded. He needs to get out. He needs to see the world again—he can’t stand being trapped in here.

Time passes by quickly, and Robert dismantles the collar so no questions are asked and dresses Five in grey tracksuit bottoms that are three sizes too big, and this black hoodie that drowns his tiny frame. Five hasn’t gotten any bigger—grown smaller in fact. He feels it as the clothing swallows him whole.

It’s an afterthought as he climbs into Roberts white van. He doesn’t remember it. He doesn’t remember seeing it the night he was taken. He feels a tangy, knotted feeling in his belly, a lower gut punch as soon as he sits himself in it and he knows he’s been in here before.

Being outside again is lovely. He only has a moment to bask in the early morning crispness before he’s tucked away in the vehicle, and he sits quietly and obediently as Robert pulls over his seatbelt and gets driving.

The trip over isn’t silent. Five is eager to watch the world passing by through the windows, recognise where he is, but Robert jumps into conversation on the get go. “Now, I have some rules. I’m sure they’re not too difficult to follow. You can follow a few simple orders, can’t you?” 

He sneers as he says it, condescending and arrogant. Five nods without addressing him, eyes fixed on the stop signs and the directions they’re going at each junction. _Left, right, right again . . ._

“If you try anything,” Robert says lowly. “I will tear you apart. Don’t think for a second you can get away with anything because I promise you, you can’t.”

Five thinks differently, but he remembers his bloodied knuckles and bruised knees and cracked ribs and rose-flecked cheekbones, handfuls of heart ash falling through his fingers and he remembers that he has lost control.

He lost it a long time ago.

“You will stick by my side and keep your head down. You’re hardly recognisable anyways, but you avoid looking at anybody, understand?”

Five hates that statement. Is he really that different now? Would his siblings know him?

Do they even still _look_ for him?

They’re pulling into the parking lot of a supermarket before Five can blink, and his heart pounds and pounds with an anxious anticipation. His fingers twitch against his lap. He tries to plan in his head.

Whatever his thoughts were, they blank before he knows it. It’s white noise and static fabric as soon as Robert hauls him through the underground, a firm grip on his upper arm that tests him to try anything. Five barely whimpers as he fumbles over himself to try and keep up.

He feels like a newborn deer walking on baby legs for the first time, stumbling in unknown muscle memory and a sharp constant effort in putting one foot in front of the other. He’s almost latching onto Robert as much as Robert is latching into him.

And he realises that he is not far from home.

In fact, he hasn’t left home at all. Griddy’s is close by and the academy is only minutes away. He’s been home all along.

_He’s been home all along._

Five swallows, thick and sticky in his mouth. “What are we getting?”

“Things,” Robert answers stiffly. He adjusts his grip on Five to appear more natural as they step inside the store, careful and collected and conning a calm composure. Five sucks in a sharp breath, attempting to look around him despite his head being forced downwards. 

He hasn’t been in a grocery store since even before the apocalypse. When he’d been a child, Grace had occasionally chosen one of them to accompany her in a weekly shopping spree. The outing had never been particularly _fun_ , but it’d been a change of scenery, an escape from the academy. Unreserved from their half hour playtime’s on a Saturday, it would be an hour of relief during the week. And if they behaved they sometimes got treated. 

Five hadn’t realised how long it’s been until he’s really inside, eyes darting over the shopping carts and fruit boxes, the aisles and aisles of _food_. 

“I have a list here that I’m going to get you to run around and pick up from,” Robert is saying, as Five tries to get it together before he collapses on the spot. “Just usual things. Milk, bread—the good kind—orange juice, eggs. I’m running low on washing tablets, too. Oh! You can grab some marshmallows, if you want. I have peanut butter at home.”

Five is barely paying attention, nodding along at all the right times as he tunes in to everyone around him. He wonders if he should start screaming. No, definitely not. He’s going to have to be strategic about this.

“Don’t forget,” Robert hisses, fingers unlatching from around his arm. “I’m watching. Don’t. Even. _Think_ about it.”

Five nods again. He still can’t conjure up a sentence. 

Robert leaves him to it, slinking away somewhere not too far but far enough that Five feels he can actually breathe. 

He holds the list shoved in his hands. Looks around. _This is a test,_ he reminds himself, studying what’s written. _He’s watching you._

And so, obediently, like a faithful little dog, Five begins to fetch for asked items, a lump in his throat the entire time. The supermarket is close to empty, only the odd person here and there picking up some things. Strange, and sort of a let down. He’s been half hoping to bump into somebody or something. Hoping someone would recognise him.

Robert did say nobody would know who he is anymore. 

_He_ doesn’t even know who he is anymore.

He’s grabbing the milk from the fridges when another figure steps into place beside him, waiting for him to move out of the way before retrieving some for themselves. Five glances over, looking up at a tall man with reddish hair and thin, sharp glasses. He has these small eyes and elfish ears and looks very disproportionate. 

He looks kind. Gentle. Somebody who would _help_.

But Five can do nothing but stare. His stomach is doing flips as he fumbles with the carton, the words caught in his throat with his body breaking out into a cold sweat. He can feel a taunting presence behind him—he knows he’s not safe. 

“Are you alright?” The man says, noticing Five’s blatant staring. He even _sounds_ nice and—fuck, Five wishes that everyone in the world had superpowers, specifically _mind-reading_ powers so this asshole could pick up on what his mouth can’t say.

But, Alas, he’s stuck on the planet he saved with ordinary humans living ordinary lives, and they can’t read minds and he can’t open his stupid damn mouth. Robert is slithering somewhere nearby and Five is so close, so _close—_

“Son?” Ginger guy says. “Did you hear me?”

_Speak you fucking moron. This is your ticket out of here!_

Five licks his lips, tongue dry, opens his mouth—

“He’s fine.” Gritted teeth, a sharp hand on his shoulder. Fingers digging into the bony blades there. “Aren’t you, bud?”

And his whole world comes crashing down. “Yeah,” he says, barely above a whisper. “I’m fine.”

Ginger guy doesn’t look convinced. “You sure?” He looks at Robert, gesturing at Five with the basket in his hand. “His face just went like, really pale. I thought he was gonna pass out on me or somethin’.”

He chuckles at the end to play it off as just friendly concern, but Robert doesn’t seem pleased. The fingers dig harder, and Five suppresses the strong urge to pull his shoulder away. “Thanks, but he’s fine, honestly. We’ll get him home now.”

And then Five is steered away, chin down and heart sunk. He can feel the man's gaze on his back and he wishes, wishes he spoke up.

But he didn’t.

Robert doesn’t speak a word to him the entire way home.

—

Five slams his hand on the mirror. He nearly breaks it again.

He can’t stand to look at his reflection anymore. 

Who even _is_ he?

—

  
  


“Why did you pick zero?” Robert asks him one day. It’s bitter outside and bitter inside Five’s mind, where he’s feeling clumped and suffocated and scuttled to dust. He fiddles with the die in his hands, trying to think of a reasonable answer.

He doesn’t really want to give away the truth. He doesn’t want Robert to know about Diego. He doesn’t want him to know about Luther, Allison, Klaus or Vanya, either. He’s made it this far without bringing his personal life into it and he can’t stand the thought of Robert using his safe scape against him.

“Thought it worked,” he mutters in the end, rolling the die across the board. They’re playing snakes and ladders, and yeah, it’s a bit pathetic, but Five hadn’t even had the energy to argue when Robert insisted they play. 

“Thought it _worked_?” Robert scoffs, unkindly. “That’s a bit bare. I thought you thought higher of yourself, no?”

Five bites his lip. _I used to. I’m not so sure anymore._

“You didn’t seem to have a problem with it,” he says, pulling his knees to his chest. This room seems to be getting even smaller, somehow, and Five is shrinking with it.

As are his hopes of getting out of here.

“I don’t,” Robert sneers, grabbing the die off him. “You are zero. Nothing, really. A waste of space. No wonder nobodies come looking for you.”

Five feels that comment sharp in the gut, the corners of his belly. He tries not to show how much it hurts as he turns his head away. “Right.”

Robert nods, landing on two sixes. “Right.”

—

He loves his siblings so much it’s painful.

He’s starting to hate them, too.

—

_They’re not coming, nobody is coming and you’re never getting out of here. Look how useless you are. How pathetic. You should’ve killed this imbecile months ago._

Five is plagued by thought after thought as he inks across his palm. Robert has been kind enough to give him his long-awaited peanut butter and marshmallow sandwich today and he’s feeling somewhat unresentful. 

_You’re going to be stuck here with him forever._

And that thought doesn’t even scare him anymore. He’s suffered worse, hasn’t he? 

_It doesn’t need to be scary for it to be awful. You know that. You don’t want to live this way forever._

But he will. He will, won’t he? Five can’t see a way out of this shithole. He’s been stripped clean, raw and vulnerable. He had something long ago that he doesn't now, and what once was isn’t anymore. 

He doesn’t feel like the most dangerous assassin in the space/time continuum. He’s just a small, prepubescent child with eyes that leak moon tipped rivers and ears too big for his head, and he feels _useless_.

He wishes he could go back to the Five that stormed out and fucked everything up, and just tell him to get _over_ himself and go _home_. He wishes he could tell him that he will watch the world fade and die and pass him by without anyone in it, and he will bury his siblings in the ashes of nothingness and he will watch everything he worked for get _destroyed_.

And he will survive on scraps for forty-five years in a wasteland with the love of his life. He will swim in the black seas of trauma and watch everything he knows burn in his hands, and he will get rescued on a day where the sun always shines and turned into a man-made killing machine built to corrupt. And he will kill, and kill, and kill. 

And he won’t rest for years and years and years, he will worry for all the hours the universe has to offer, and the minutes will count down to his memories of all the ones he loves, the ones he won’t stop thinking about, the ones that will bring him home. 

And he will go home stuck as the child he never really grew out of, with his loves that did, and will try and save what he couldn’t and the sun will shine as it always does but he will watch everything fall apart again and it’s going to be _fucking hard_.

He wishes he could tell him how hard it's going to be. It’s going to be a long, long life.

He wishes for a lot of things. And he’s sick of wishing.

He’s so tired. He wants to go home.

He really, really wants to go home.

—

  
  


“Please, please, please,” Five whispers into his pillow, eyes squeezed shut as the tears pool out of them. He’s so lost. So, so lost. “Please come get me. I really hate it here.” He feels sick.

Nobody answers.

He’s not sure if he’d expected them to.

—

Robert kisses him and Five kisses back.

It’s quick paced and doesn’t escalate. They just kiss for a while. 

Robert pulls him onto his lap and Five presses his mouth against his with such force their teeth clash, and they’re gripping each other’s hair and gasping and panting like it’s passionately beautiful.

Five hates it, but holy fuck he just wants to _feel_ something. He can’t stand being numb anymore.

This is the wrong way to deal with it. 

—

“We’re going to clean the garden shed,” Robert announces. Five is eating brown rice and feeling miserable. 

“Okay,” he says, and barely bites back a snarl as Robert dresses him in something warm and too big. As always.

The garden is nice in daytime. It’s lighter, and it doesn’t hold the same mysticism it does at night, but it’s still as exquisite. The grass is still as green and the berries just as ripe. He would love to play here all day, he thinks.

Robert hands him some tools, scrapers, gloves, trash bags and cleaning supplies. “You’re going to wash the windows.”

“Right,” Five mumbles, and gets to work. It’s nothing difficult, but he’s grown so weak and malnourished in his time here and his body just isn’t capable of the little things anymore. It has no fuel to run it’s engine. It’s tired, like he is.

Robert fucks about with him for a bit, splashing him with soap and riling him up. He makes backhanded comments and is snide about Five’s exhausted limbs. He’s cruel even in these moments. 

He’s always cruel.

“Come _on,_ you useless thing,” Robert gruffs, grabbing Five’s elbow and rubbing his arm up and down harder against the shed’s windowpane. “More elbow grease, do you know nothing? You’re getting hardly any dirt off!”

Five doesn’t apologise. He just tries harder.

Robert looks like he’s going to combust before his phone starts to vibrate. “Hang on,” he grumbles, turning away. “I’m going inside to take this. Don’t you dare stop scrubbing.”

He disappears inside the door, into the kitchen with his back to Five. It seems to be a very important phone call. Five couldn’t give two shits, though.

In Robert’s absence he takes the moment to look around him, giving his aching arm a break. The sun is thick on his neck and the birds are plenty cheerful up in the sky. It’s a pleasant enough day.

And then the gate catches his attention.

Because it’s _open_.

Slowly, he dips and drops his sponge into the bucket. His heart starts to race again. Robert is still loudly conversing on the line, clearly impatient with the poor creature at the other end. What’s most important, is that he’s distracted.

_You missed your last chance. Don’t mess this up. Fucking run._

And so, he does.

He slips through behind the shed beside the garden wall, where the vines are tangled down like the ivory webs on the bridge, to the gate that’s only slightly ajar. _He’s_ only slight himself, and he fits through quietly.

And then he turns and runs.

He runs, and runs, and runs. His heart is in his hands and the world is a blur, his eyes are sourly wet and he's probably crying but he's finally fucking free and he keeps on running.

And he doesn’t look back.

—

In the end, Five had always known only one of them would survive.

He just hadn’t known it would be him.


End file.
